The
Department of Veterans Affairs can’t seem to keep up with the
burden of their heavy workload. They’ve taken flack for
administrative corruption, long wait times, and even negligent
responses to suicidal soldiers seeking assistance.

The
latest scandal to break paints another bleak picture. A
whistle-blower at an Illinois VA hospital has leaked news that bodies
of dead veterans have been left unclaimed in the morgue for up to two
months.

Complaints
were lodged with the VA’s inspector general last month about the
Edward Hines Jr. VA Hospital’s handling of cadavers. In some cases,
veterans’ families had not claimed the bodies. The complaint names
Christopher Wirtjes, chief of Patient Administrative Services. “The
Chief of PAS has the funds available,” the complaint reads, “yet
has no sense of urgency to lay the veteran to rest.”

Sen.
Mark Kirk, R-Ill., has called for Wirtjes to be fired.

“Hines
VA — the hospital that has been overrun with cockroaches and mold
and left vets waiting for care for months on secret wait lists, has
reached a new low in the treatment of our veterans,” Kirk
said in an interview with Fox. “We now have reports of bodies being
left to decompose in the morgue for months on end.”

“Some
veteran’s remains have been left in our hospital morgue for 45 days
or more until they are stacked to capacity at times,” reads the
complaint.

The
level of decay was so pronounced that at least one of the bodies had
liquefied. When the staff tried to remove it, the body-bag burst.

Kirk
has taken his concerns to VA Secretary Bob McDonald. Wirtjes has been
under scrutiny before. The Office of Special Counsel found Wirtjes
had devised a secret wait list that was exposed in 2014.

The
paper trail for this debacle seems even more damning.

“[There
is] an invoice for an unclaimed veteran that has been here for over
30 days. Please approve for burial at Abraham Lincoln,” a clerk
wrote to Wirtjes.

“Approval
of unclaimed Vet D?? Status?” He wrote again several days later.

When
no response came, he asked more bluntly:“Any further on my poor
unclaimed? I WILL file a police report, but I hate doing that…”

Emails
from June 14, 2016 and Aug. 29, 2016 state that two different
veterans languished in the morgue for a month or more.

A
manager at the hospital finally said he would “try to figure it out
with the funeral home. … At least he would be laid to rest.”

“I
have not heard anything as to the approval for funeral home pick up.
It will be a month tomorrow,” the clerk responded.

The
spokesman for the hospital, Rick Fox, disputed the allegations: “We
take whistle-blower allegations very seriously and absolutely agree
that all of our veterans deserve dignity and respect, in life and in
death. While our investigation into this matter is still ongoing, we
have found allegations related to consistent problems with dignified
and timely burials to be unsubstantiated. However, we have taken this
opportunity to review our policies and procedures and are currently
working to improve them.”